


Those Were the Days of Our Lives

by elliearmstrongg



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Dementia, M/M, Memory Loss, Sad, i am so sorry in advance, it is very sad, no ok i almost cried writing this get out the tissues, warning: primarily about dementia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 21:20:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7405273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliearmstrongg/pseuds/elliearmstrongg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every day, Dan buys a cute card, a small bouquet of flowers, and a lion bar for his husband of thirty years. Trouble is, Phil can't remember him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those Were the Days of Our Lives

Every day, my routine started out in the exact same way. Pick up flowers for Phil, write a little note inside the cutest card I could find, get a Lion bar with peanuts, and take the train to the hospital. It had been that way for three years. He’d gotten progressively worse over the years; when it started it was little things that he would forget, like if he had fed the dog, but it had gotten to the point where Phil couldn’t even remember my name.   
“Hi, Phil,” I said, putting the flowers, the card, and the Lion bar on the hospital table.   
“You brought me flowers,” Phil said. “Thank you. Who are you?”   
“I’m Dan. I’m your husband.” I took Phil’s left hand and pointed at the golden band on it. Then I pointed to my own. “We got married on October 19, 2022. See?” I took out my wallet, which contained all of the pictures with the major memories- our wedding, when we first met our daughter, when she graduated from college… they were all there.   
“I don’t remember that.” The words tore through my heart. Normally he started to have a recollection of this event with the picture. He was getting worse.   
“Do you want to see when we were young?”   
“Okay.”   
I scrolled through my phone to find the picture that I took when we had first met, the one that somehow never made it off of my camera roll. “Here,” I said, handing him the phone. It was a rather embarrassing photo of myself, but the fact that Phil and I were there, really there, and happy, was enough to make me keep it forever.   
“Is that us?”  
“Yeah.”  
“You were cute.”  
I blushed, even though I was used to this sort of thing from Phil. The same realizations every day.   
“So were you. And you still are,” I replied, kissing Phil on his wrinkled cheek. Phil smiled, his teeth surprisingly good considering his age and deteriorating mental state.   
“In 2015, we wrote a book,” I said, pulling The Amazing Book is Not On Fire from the tattered galaxy backpack that I carried around with me. Just for old time’s sake.   
“Is that really us?” Phil asked.   
“Yeah. That’s really us,” I said, flipping through the now yellowing pages of what I considered his second greatest achievement. Then, I got out what would remind him of what topped it.   
In my bag, protected in a case, I kept a DVD of our wedding. It was rather old fashioned; no one really used DVD’s anymore. But, this hospital was just as outdated as we were, and I slid it into the bottom of the TV in Phil’s room.   
“This is a video of when we got married,” I said before pressing play.   
The ceremony was short; not longer than twenty minutes. I couldn’t figure out whether it was better to look at the screen or Phil’s reaction to it; they were both the most wonderful things I’ve ever seen, even if I see them every day.   
“We got married,” Phil smiled as the video came to an end, and the two men in identical black tuxes finished their first married kiss.   
“Yes,” I said, “Yes we did.”   
“So this is our daughter,” I said, once again handing Phil my phone. On it was a picture of a rather tall young woman who looked to be in her early twenties. “Her name’s Teagan Howell-Lester, and she’s a singer. She has such a pretty voice,” I said. I swiped the screen, revealing a video of her singing at her high school’s last chorale concert. Surprisingly enough, she chose a Muse song to sing in honor of her parents, and she brought a guitar for accompaniment. Soon enough, Unintended was being sung, and the normal slight murmur of the crowd completely halted. She had the room, and Phil, wrapped around her little finger.   
“She’s beautiful. We raised her well, didn’t we…” Phil forgot my name again.   
“Yes, Phil, yes we did.”   
“She also has a family of her own. She married her husband, Jack, in 2051, and she has twins named Elinor and Casey. Phil, we have grandchildren.”  
I got out the christmas card that Teagan sent us this past year, with her, Jack, and the girls happily sitting in front of the Christmas tree in their flat. Teagan hadn’t come to visit for a while now; her family life was really picking up, and she had to focus on that. I couldn’t blame her; with a situation like this, she really needed to focus on her own family.   
“That brings us to just about this point in our lives, Phil.” I locked my phone and put it in my back pocket. “It’s been so great for us.”   
Phil smiled once again. “It sounds like it has.”   
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. “Hi, Phil!” a nurse in bright white uniform said. “Dan,” she nodded.   
“Hello, Angelica!” Angelica was Phil’s nurse.   
“Dan, the doctor would like to have a word with you outside. Meanwhile, Phil, let’s get you all cleaned up, shall we?” Despite her cheery demeanor, I felt my stomach drop. Talks with the doctor were always the worst.   
“Hello, Dr. Cox,” I said, greeting the surprisingly short doctor outside of Phil’s room.   
“Hello, Mr. Howell-Lester. Can we go on a walk?”  
This can’t be good, I thought to myself.   
“Sure.”  
We walked in silence until we were well away from the patient’s wards.   
“We all know that Philip isn’t doing well,” Dr. Cox said. His tone was even more serious than normal.   
“Yeah?”  
“He… he isn’t going to make it much farther. He’s already surprised us with how far he’s come, but there’s no way he’ll make it in the next month. There’s just no possible way, I’m so sorry.”  
I was speechless. My world was crashing down. I knew that this was going to happen, but I most certainly wasn’t ready for it. Not now. Not ever.   
“Okay,” I said, barely able to hear myself.   
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Howell-Lester. I’m terribly sorry.”  
“Can I just have a minute to myself?” I asked, a lump in my throat.   
“Of course.” Dr. Cox stepped away, leaving me alone in the sitting area.   
I got out my phone and called Teagan.   
“Dad?”  
“Hey, honey.”  
“Is this about Papa?”  
“Yeah. He… he has a month to live, tops. The doctor just told me. And your father isn’t doing well. At all. I’m afraid it might be sooner or later. So you should probably come at some point next week, if you can manage it with your job.”  
“I can come right now, lemme give Darcy a call and let her know that she’ll be picking up Elinor and Casey from preschool. I’m on my way, Dad. Thanks for calling, Dad. Love you, see you in a half hour.”  
“Love you too, Teagan.” He hung up. Next, it was time for what may have been an even more difficult call; Martyn.   
Despite Phil’s deteriorating mental state, Martyn was fine mentally. He was, however, barely walking.   
“Martyn?”  
“Is he gone?”   
“Soon.”  
“I’ll see if I can get Hayley to drive me there.” Between his own mobility issues and the death of Cornelia about eight months earlier, it’s been hard for Martyn to leave the house, both physically and emotionally. Hayley, his daughter, had to drive him everywhere, as the nursing home had no shuttle.   
“Okay, Martyn.”  
I hung up the phone and slid it into my back pocket. All of the existential crises of my early twenties made him feel incredibly idiotic. I was about to lose the one that I loved more than anything in the world. If there was ever a time to lay on the floor and ponder the universe’s cruel, cruel motives, this was it.   
I can still remember the first time I watched one of Phil’s videos. In fact, it was Phil’s very first video. I remember thinking of how cute the boy was, how adorable the fact that he’d gotten his mum a stuffed lion for Mother’s Day was, how I wished to one day meet that boy with the emo hair on his laptop screen. And now I’m married to him, seeing him every day in his last moments. And boy, was I scared for the very last day.   
Time passed as I sat alone. Phil would have been wondering where I was, but he probably didn’t remember that I was there. Five minutes became ten, ten became twenty, but I heard a familiar voice talking on the phone.   
“Yes, Elinor, I’ll be back in time for dinner. Mummy’s just going to be gone for a few hours, it’s only two o’clock now. Be good for Darcy, okay? Love you.” She hung up the phone, her curly brown hair slightly frizzier than normal. “Dad,” She said, a tear streaming down her face.   
“Tea,” I said, standing up. She ran to give me a hug.   
“Is he really bad?”  
“Very. The doctors said a month, but I think it’ll be sometime in the next week. Phil’s always one to defy the doctor’s orders; if they say a week, he’ll be okay for a month; so it’ll be just our luck that he’ll continue the habit.”  
“Dad…” Teagan was now crying, a few streams of mascara running down her face. “Dad, I don’t know if I can see Papa like this.”  
“I’ll be there with you, Tea. It’ll be ok.”  
“No, Dad, it won’t be okay, because my Papa’s dying and he can’t even remember his husband’s name.”  
“We’ll get through this, Teagan. I know it.” I let go of the hug. “Let’s go see him.”  
The walk was silent to Phil’s room. I opened the door to find Phil sleeping peacefully on his bed, only to be woken up by the door. Nice, Dan.   
“Who are you guys?” Phil asked.   
“I’m Dan, your husband,” I said. “This is our daughter, Teagan.”  
“Hi, Papa,” she said, tears filling her eyes as she leaned in to give Phil a kiss on the cheek.   
“Hi, Teagan!” Phil said, as cheery and oblivious as ever.   
“Well, Papa, this is the last time I think I’m going to be able to see you for a while, so I thought that I’d tell you about my kids. How’s that?”  
“You have kids?”  
“Yeah! I have twin daughters, Elinor and Casey. They’re both four, and they’re beautiful.” Teagan showed Phil her phone, her two chubby-cheeked toddlers smiling at him.   
“They’re nice kids!” Phil said.   
“Yeah. I like to think I’m doing a good job with them. Of course, I learned from the best.” She smiled, but I could see the pain behind her eyes.   
I let Teagan talk to Phil for a few hours. Even though Phil had to be reminded of who Teagan was quite often, they actually managed to withhold some decent conversation. Soon enough, Teagan had to leave for her daughters. Darcy had a family of her own that she needed to attend to.   
“By, Tea. Call me if you need anything,” I said as I hugged her.   
“Okay, Dad.” She turned to Phil. “Goodbye, Papa.”  
“Goodbye, oh, what’s her name…”  
“Teagan,” she said, many tears streaming down her face. “My name’s Teagan. Goodbye, Papa. I love you.” She closed the door after her as she left, with a cry of “Uncle Martyn!” being heard shortly after she closed the door.   
I got up to open the door for Martyn, who was wheelchair bound at this point. Hayley, his youngest daughter, was pushing the wheelchair across the hospital room floor. “Hi, Martyn,” I said, leaning down to give him a hug. “Hi, Hayley,” I said, giving her a hug. Martyn smiled weakly.   
“Hi, Phil,” he greeted  
“Who are you?”  
“I’m your big brother, Martyn.”   
“Were you the one that left me alone on the train?”   
Of course he could remember various glimpses of his childhood. That’s how his brain worked. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in his memory anymore. That part of our life was gone to him.   
“Yes, Phil, sorry about that,” Martyn laughed. “Do you remember much else of our childhoods? We did spend them together, after all.”  
“No,” Phil said, oblivious to the eighteen years that he had spent alongside his older brother.   
Martyn’s face fell. Phil couldn’t remember anything of him, except when Martyn left Phil alone on the train at the age of six. That had to be the most heartbreaking thing, maybe even worse than Phil not remembering me at all.   
I decided to let Phil and Martyn have their space, Martyn didn’t seem too emotional like Teagan did. It was time for me to get something to eat; I’d forgotten to slip out for lunch during Phil’s shower.   
I went to the Starbucks on the first floor of the hospital. The tables were mainly empty, but one couple was sitting at a table in the corner, sipping hot chocolates, the husband holding his wife as she cried. One of her parents may have just passed. The barista was looking out at them while waiting for her next customer, which would be me.   
“One grande cappuccino, please.” I handed her my credit card.   
“2.70,” she said, taking the card. “Have that out in a giffy for you, mate.”  
I stood by the pick-up in silence. I remember the Starbucks in Japan, when Phil and I went at 5 in the morning so we could watch the sun rise on the roof. There was no better way to start our honeymoon. God, how I wished I could relive those days. When we were young, when we were crazy, when life was a rollercoaster only going up. Now it’s reaching the end of the ride, the big drop has come, but that feeling of adrenaline, the rush of excitement from falling, it wasn’t there. It was a knot in your stomach. It was the feeling of regret. Life wasn’t some sort of a fun rollercoaster or water ride at Disney World. It was terrible, and came to an end that you most certainly didn’t want.  
But I still wanted to do it all again.   
I got my cappuccino and began the walk back to Phil’s room. Wanting to avoid any and all people (the ‘I’m home from work and I’d like to see my dying parents really quick before weekday visiting hours end’ crowd has begun to enter the hospital), I took the stairs. Despite being in my seventies, I can get up three flights of stairs fairly well. I checked the time. 5:24. I had been gone for almost a half an hour. Martyn and Hayley were still talking to him. It was probably time to go back.   
I slowly opened the door to his room. Phil and Martyn were still talking, while Hayley denied a call on her cell phone. Phil was laughing, and so was Martyn, but his eyes weren’t. It was easy to tell that Martyn wasn’t dealing well with this.   
“Dad, I think we need to go now. The nursing home closes its doors at seven, and it’ll take a while to get back in this traffic.”  
“Okay, Hayley. Goodbye, Phil. Love you loads, little brother.”  
“Bye!” Phil said, waving at them. He was still just as happy as he was before he got sick. Amazing how personalities don’t change, despite losing 95% of your memory.   
“So who are you again?” Phil said, looking confused.   
“I’m Dan. Your husband.”  
“Oh yeah!” Phil said. “That one girl that was here. With the hair.” He motioned around his head, depicting Teagan’s frizzy brown hair.   
“That’s our daughter, Phil. Her name’s Teagan.”  
“Yes, her. She’s our daughter?”  
“Yeah.”  
“She’s good. We did well, didn’t we?”  
“Yeah. Yeah, we did.”  
We sat in silence for a while. Phil’s hair was nearly white, even whiter than his skin, which we wouldn’t have thought possible in our YouTube days.   
“Hey Phil, did you know we’ve been to Japan before? We’ve gone twice.”  
“Japan? That’s in Asia, right?”  
“Yeah,” I laughed. “It’s beautiful. Here, I’ve got some pictures.” I got out my phone again and started to show Phil some of our pictures from Japan- from the rooftop Starbucks, from the Studio Ghibli exhibit, from the gate that Phil accidentally walked through even though it was reserved for the Gods. Phil looked at the pictures, his eyes wide open.   
“We went to Japan?”  
“Yeah, Phil,” I said, “Yeah, we did.”  
We talked for a while about Japan until Phil asked a question.   
“What was my job?”  
“We were youtubers,” I said. “We made videos, and people watched them and liked them and I met you because I liked your videos.”  
“Can we watch one?” Phil asked.   
“Sure,” I said, opening the YouTube app on my phone. YouTube’s held up surprisingly well over the past thirty years. I clicked on AmazingPhil, his channel, and opened the most famous video; the one that started it all. Phil is not on fire.   
“Why do you always draw cat whiskers on your face?” Eighteen-year-old me began. Phil smiled once again.   
“Is that us?”   
“Yeah, that’s us. Right when we first started dating.”  
“You were cute.”  
“Thanks, Phil.” He never fails to call me cute.   
Just as eighteen-year-old me was showcasing Phil’s house from the shining, Angelica, Phil’s nurse, came into the room.   
“Dan, I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid visiting hours are over now. Phil needs to get some sleep for tomorrow.”   
“Alright,” I said. I turned to Phil. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Phil. I love you.”  
“Love you too,” Phil said. Somehow, even though he only remembered me when I was in the room, I knew that he meant it. I opened the door to leave.   
“Dan?”   
He remembered my name.   
“Yeah, Phil?”  
“This is the most fun I’ve ever had.”   
I sighed. “Me too, Phil, me too.”  
Tears were filling up my eyes. Of all the things that Phil could remember, this had to be it. Was he starting to remember? Had the universe just been playing some sort of cruel joke on me, and Phil was going to be fine?  
I took the stairs back down to the main floor, just in time to catch the train. I was about to text Teagan that I had left, but apparently my phone had run out of battery between showing Phil our video and getting to the train. Oh well. I could always charge it when I got home.   
Twenty minutes later, the train ride ended, and I was back in our old flat that we’d rented before we got married. It was up for sale again about a year ago, and I knew that it was a good size for me when I was living alone, but it could host the grandkids if I ever needed to. So, for old time’s sake, I bought it.   
I put my phone on the charger, waiting for it to restart as I turned on the news. Nothing new happened; people still griped about politics. But none of that mattered. All that mattered to me was Phil.   
My phone restarted. I had a missed call from an unknown number. But there was no need calling back. I already knew who it was, and I knew, as much as I hated to know it, that there was no reason to get on the train tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I hope that you enjoyed this fanfic! It's my first fic on ao3 so I hope you guys really enjoy it! If you guys would like to follow me on tumblr for much less depressing phandom content, my url is dans-shibainu. I hope you guys have a great day! <3 
> 
> -Ellie


End file.
